The Property Ombudsman

The Yomdel team successfully provide first contact handling, resolving a massive 27% of all TPO enquiries.

As one of only two compulsory redress schemes in the UK designed to provide independent conflict resolution across the residential property sector, The Property Ombudsman (TPO) receives around 25,000 initial consumer enquiries every year.

Around 15% of these typically result in a complex complaint requiring formal review, and possibly redress.

The Challenge

A 27% rise in the level of enquiries from consumers online within a period of just three months led TPO to look for ways to enhance its customer support, as its in-house team was simply becoming overwhelmed, and pressure on response times and service level agreements was mounting.

“We recognised that with more customers getting in touch, in an increasingly digital world, there was a pressing need to ensure that consumers could have their concerns responded to quickly and efficiently.The onus was not just on maintaining the very highest levels of customer service, but on maximising all opportunities for early resolutions.”

Katrine Sporle, Ombudsman

The Solution

TPO selected Yomdel to provide 24/7 fully managed live chat, which saw 6,458 initial enquiries successfully handled via the new live chat channel in just the first six months of service.

Since these impressive, immediate results, Yomdel have worked in partnership with TPO, and our team now offers independent dispute advice and resolution 24/7 via intelligent managed live chat engagement with web visitors in the UK and overseas.

The Impact

Successfully managing 6,458 chats within the first six months of being live, Yomdel resolved a massive 27% of all TPO enquiries received that year.

“Introducing Yomdel has provided a triage service to ensure that the number of enquiries TPO staff receive has been managed effectively.” Katrine explained.

“We hit a staggering 68% increase in the number of enquiries [in 2017]. We had found a whole new source of people who wanted to make enquiries in the middle of the night, students for one. All of a sudden we were actually giving advice and guidance to a whole new range of people which was actually helping the industry, not hindering,” she added.

But the critical impact was that the massive increase in enquiries did not lead to a huge increase in formal complaints. Due to the Yomdel team successfully providing first contact resolution in the majority of engagements, the volume of actual qualified complaints escalated through formal channels grew just 3% over the same period.

The decision to partner with Yomdel for the provision of an online help facility has been significant for The Property Ombudsman, enabling it to operate 24/7, and to contact many more people. In turn, this has broadened consumer knowledge and awareness and encouraged the resolution of potential issues before they escalate through to formal TPO channels.

“By providing visitors to our website with the opportunity to engage in real-time with highly knowledgeable operators 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has helped us to manage a hidden demand from a difficult to reach group.

We can now capture and service many more people than ever before. I’m really impressed with Yomdel.”